美国中期选举博客谈 -‘sleaziest ever’

Here in Washington over the usual heart-attack-on-a-plate American breakfast this morning I turned to the Washington Post for a summary of the elections.

“Has there ever been a more negative, dispiriting election?” asks columnist Eugene Robinson, clearly not expecting an answer. So I switched to the New York Times. Columnist Barry Schwartz called these elections “the sorriest, sleaziest, most disheartening and embarrassing in memory.” Then I switched on the TV just to cheer myself up. The presenter was asking a pundit from the Los Angeles Times what it would be like if the Democrats failed to win the House of Representatives.

“Jonestown,” replied the pundit, referring to a bizarre cult involved in a mass suicide many years ago.

So it all sounds fairly promising, then. The television advertisements I’ve been watching have almost all been negative. The overwhelming impression is that hundreds of criminals, rapscallions and ne’er do wells are currently on the loose on the streets of the United States all seeking election for the opposing political party.

The Democratic campaign seems to boil down to one phrase: “We’re not George Bush.” And the Republican campaign is similarly taut: “We’re not George Bush either.”

Somehow, however, American voters will sort it all out.

Gavin Esler presents BBC TV’s Newsnight programme

Foreign-affairs crisis
Adam Brookes
7 Nov 06, 04:27 AM

The wisdom – if such a thing exists as the polls open – is that the Democrats will take the House of Representatives, but they probably won’t take the Senate.

If the wisdom proves correct and the House falls to the Democrats, what would it mean for the rest of the world?

Well, possibly not much, it seems to me.

Congress has little weight in the formulation of specific foreign and national security policies. Those get set by the executive branch of government – the administration.

The future of America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the responses to Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes are being decided in the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the Department of State and the White House.

(One important caveat: there is said to be an intense and important discussion on Iraq and what on earth to do about it taking place between a bipartisan group of Senators. But that may be the exception that proves the rule.)

If the Democrats win the House, they will have some tools with which to confront the White House.

They could threaten to cut off funding for foreign policies they don’t like by voting down spending bills that are funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example.

They can haul political appointees like Donald Rumsfeld over the coals in Congressional hearings.

And they can create a political atmosphere which makes it very difficult for the president to do his job.

But what a huge political risks these options bring. What Democrat would want to be seen cutting off funding for troops in the field? Or bringing down members of the president’s cabinet in the middle of a war? Or creating a ferocious partisan atmosphere which leads to political paralysis?

Two years before a presidential election, the last thing the Democrats want is to open themselves up to accusations of being defeatist or incompetent on national security.

I talked to a senior American diplomat at the weekend – one not involved in Iraq or Middle East policy. He was deeply pessimistic about American foreign policy in the short to medium term. “We’re adrift,” he said.

The elections seemed suddenly to fade in significance. America’s foreign-policy crisis – and it is thought to be a crisis by many in the diplomatic and intelligence communities – won’t be solved by emboldened Congressional Democrats.

Adam Brookes is the BBC’s Pentagon correspondent.

Saddam, Hitler and Bush
Gavin Esler
6 Nov 06, 05:25 PM

Two facts, two figures, and one big question stick in my mind this US election.

Fact One: the United States has now been at war in Iraq longer than it was at war against Hitler during World War II.

Fact Two: Saddam Hussein has been an American enemy for more than 16 years, far longer than Hitler.

Now the two figures: 15 and 6. It will take a switch of 15 House seats for the Democrats to take control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s mid-term election vote, and a switch of six seats for the Senate to change hands.

And now the Big Question: What does the Iraq war have to do with the precise number of seats which will be won and lost on Tuesday?

Many American commentators say this election is a referendum on the Bush presidency and on the conduct of the Iraq war – which is true, up to a point.

One of the best attack weapons for Democrats has been to say that the Republican candidate “votes with George Bush 97% of the time”.

Some Republican candidates are running away from George Bush like scalded dogs.

But Mr Bush has been campaigning as though his own political future depends on Tuesday’s result – which it does, up to a point.

And two days before the vote – no doubt entirely coincidentally – we learn Saddam Hussein is to be executed. The verdict may well help Mr Bush.

Almost all the pundits and pollsters agree that the Democrats will gain control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. The Senate is thought more likely to stay with the Republicans.

And so those of us trying to predict what might happen are left speculating how far the Democrats will feel empowered – if they win the House of Representatives – to launch a series of inquiries into the conduct of the Iraq war.

Presidents at the end of their second term – Reagan with the Iran-contra affair, Clinton with Monica Lewinsky – often find they are bedevilled by hostile Congressional investigations.

But my gut instinct is that instead of being hobbled by all this, Mr Bush may well be liberated.

A Democratic House of Representatives would give Mr Bush the kind of opposition he has so sorely lacked for the past six years. Mr Bush would be forced to seek bipartisan consensus – no bad thing during wartime.

And of course after Tuesday Mr Bush never needs to worry about leading the Republican Party in any election ever again. The end of the Bush presidency may begin on Tuesday, but my guess is – to quote Ronald Reagan – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Gavin Esler presents BBC TV’s Newsnight programme

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